Anonymous
by denise1
Summary: A tag to Show and Tell


Note- on June 13, 2000 the Topeka Police Department lost two of its officers when their helicopter crashed.  This fic is dedicated to those men and all the anonymous men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day.

Anonymous

by

Denise

Jack walked slowly down the corridor barely noting the hustle and bustle of the repair crews.  Damn the Ree-tou had made a mess.  There had been only five of the ugly buggers, well six if you counted Mother, but they'd done a lot of damage.

Replacing the glass in the control room would only take a day or two, but thanks to Carter's little handiwork with the grenade, they'd all be taking the stairs or the freight elevator for a couple weeks.  He really needed to talk to her about that someday.  His captain certainly was fond of her explosives.

Later.

Right now he was going home.  Janet's magic little pills were starting to wear off and his shoulder was hurting like hell.

He stepped into the locker room, awkwardly opening the door with his left hand.  He made his way to his locker, aiming to grab his jacket and go.  Janet would have a fit but he'd deal with that later, assuming she ever found out.  Thank god he drove an automatic.  Right now working a stick shift was just a bit beyond his capabilities.

He stopped short at the sight of Daniel sitting on one of the benches.  He did good today. For an anthropologist/linguist/archaeologist/triple Ph.D. with minimal training he hadn't hesitated a second, picking up the TER and blowing away two of the aliens with a reaction time even Makepeace would be proud of.  What happened to the Ree-tou bodies anyway? Did odors cross into this phase?  Guess they'd find out in a few days if anyone noticed a gross smell in the control room.

"Danny boy, thought you'd left a few hours ago?" Jack asked.

"Huh?" Daniel said as he turned a distracted gaze towards his friend. "Oh, hey Jack."

Seeing the faint lines of a frown on his friend's face, Jack eased himself down beside him on the bench, trying not to jostle his injured shoulder. "Something on your mind?" Daniel opened his mouth, then shut it and bent over to tie his boot laces.  "Daniel," Jack said, using that tone that told his friend he could speak up now or later and Jack wouldn't leave him alone until he did.

"I aah...I was just wondering..."

"What?" Jack drawled slowly as Daniel's voice trailed off.

"Which of these were theirs," Daniel said quietly.

"Theirs what?" Jack asked, confused.

"The men that died today.  Which lockers were theirs," Daniel explained, sweeping his hand towards the rows of anonymous metal boxes.

Jack followed his friend's gesture. He squinted a bit... "Think that one's Plunkett's," he said.

"Plunkett what?" Daniel asked.

Jack shook his head unable to follow his friend's line of reasoning.  Like that had never happened before.  "What are you getting at Daniel?"

"Jack, he died today...not 5 feet away from me...five feet and I'd be dead in his place."

"So it was a close call..." Jack dismissed.

Daniel cut him off.  "I'm not talking about the close call," he said, raising his voice a bit. "I've had closer. What I'm talking about is a man dying...just feet away from me, defending this base, watching our backs, and I didn't even know his name!"

"It was Plunkett Daniel."

"Don't kid me Jack.  You only knew his name because it was sewn on his shirt.  Did he have a family?  Did he like to bowl?  Where was he from?  What was his first name?  If the military didn't have this cute little habit of making people wear labels would you even have known his last name?  Was he a person or just a body in a uniform?" Daniel asked slowly, like one would ask a small child.

"For crying out loud Daniel.  If you count all the SG teams, medics, scientists and engineers there are nearly 500 people in the SGC. Do you expect me to know the first name of each and every one?" Jack asked in exasperation.

"If he was on an SG team you'd know," Daniel countered.

"As 2IC of this base of course I'm familiar with the people on the teams. It's my job to help pick them."

"Then why don't you know..."

"It's called delegation Daniel.  I don't tell Siler who's a good engineer, or Fraiser who'll be a good nurse and neither of them are going to tell me who's going to be on the teams."

"But Jack..."

"Daniel, believe it or not I do try to keep an eye on the various personnel.  I mean if we'd all been paying closer attention that Ashrak wouldn't have slipped by us.  But it's damned hard to do when you leave the planet for a week and discover people have died or transferred while you were gone."

Daniel sighed and slumped.  "You're right. It's just...I used to know Jack.  I used to know the name or face of everyone here.  I used to be able to walk from the first checkpoint to the gate room and know every name.  Now...the newest tech in the control room...It's his palm print that's going to open the iris.  He literally holds my...our...lives in the palm of his hand and I don't even know his name.  The marines in the gate room...the ones we DON'T want to shoot us...the ones who'll bail us out if something slips through before we can close the iris...I don't know a single one of them.  They all know us.  I can walk up to almost any one of them and ask 'Where's Colonel O'Neill?' and they'll have an answer.  Good grief Jack!  We're putting our lives in the hands of total strangers every day.  They're the first people we call for help... and they're just anonymous faces in a uniform.  Shouldn't we at least learn their names?" Daniel asked earnestly.

Jack stopped and thought.  He HAD been using 'Airman' a lot lately.  A year ago he would have known...at least most of the people.  Daniel was right.  The SF's in the hallways, the marines in the gate room, heck what was that new tech's name anyway?  "You're right Daniel, we should," he said quietly. "But not tonight.  I'm way too tired and my shoulder hurts too damn much to play the name game."

A look of guilt flitted across Daniel's face.  "God Jack.  I forgot.  How's your shoulder?"

"Nothing a cold beer and a few days off won't cure.  Neither of which I can get here.  Tell ya what Daniel.  Gimme a ride home and the pizza's on me," Jack propositioned as he got to his feet.

"Promise me we won't have to watch hockey and you've got yourself a deal," Daniel countered as he too stood up and closed his locker door.

Both men left the locker room and made their way to the elevator.  They were stopped by an airman who was picking up some of the debris left from the attack.  "The elevator's still out Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson," he said, pausing his work respectfully to address them.  "Everyone needs to take the freight elevator off corridor A," he reminded.

"That's right, I forgot.  Thank you A..." Jack paused to look more closely at the man.  "Sgt. Watkins. Carry on," he said as he and Daniel turned and made their way to the slow freight elevator. 

fin


End file.
